In October, I wrote about the five stages of DRM failure. At that point, I wrote that the MPAA was just moving from the anger stage to the bargaining stage. Now, it’s looking like they’ve reached the bargaining stage in earnest:
In his speech to industry insiders at the posh Beverly Hills Four Seasons hotel, Glickman repeatedly stressed that DRM must be made to work without constricting consumers. The goal, he said, was “to make things simpler for the consumer,” and he added that the movie studios were open to “a technology summit” featuring academics, IT companies, and content producers to work on the issues involved. He also pointed to the $30 million MovieLabs project that the studios are currently funding as proof of their commitment to interoperability.
Speaking to Ars after the speech, Glickman acknowledged that the plan was still in the early stages. I asked him specifically about DVDs, which are currently illegal to rip under the DMCA, and how the law would square with his vision of allowing consumers to use such content on iPods and other devices. “You notice that I said ‘legally’ and in a protected way,” Glickman responded, suggesting that some form of DRM would still be required before the studios would sign off on such a plan. He noted, however, that no specific plans have been made.
The MPAA does recognize that progress on DRM needs to be made soon, or impatient consumers will increasingly turn to unauthorized sources for content. “We’re working on this right now, trying to find ways to make it interoperable,” he said, but added that pricing and business models for such a system are “way beyond my pay grade.”
As I’ve written before, interoperable DRM is practically a contradiction in terms. DRM is inherently proprietary, and so while you can license a DRM scheme to multiple vendors, you can never build a DRM scheme that will work with devices not under the DRM scheme’s umbrella. That’s why Zune didn’t PlayForSure.
Similarly, as I’ve said repeatedly, DRM and fair use are inherently incompatible, because fair use is an inherently open-ended concept. DRM systems work by making a list of the things a consumer can do with his content and then prohibiting the consumer from doing anything else. But you can’t make a list that encompasses all possible fair uses, because the list is limited only by human imagination.
On the other hand, the recording industry is much further along in the grieving process. They’ve already gone through denial, anger, and bargaining, and now they seem to be in the depression phase, with EMI having reached the acceptance phase. Once the other labels join them, which could happen as early as this year, we’ll get to the really fun part, where the labels actually start to focus on making their products more appealing for their paying customers. Alas, it looks like Hollywood is still a few years away from that point.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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